November 16, 1933
“Bird’s nest soup?” I asked, picking up the beautiful handwritten menu from the dining room table, which was extended and set for twenty-six. “Impressive.” I held up the thick sheet of rice paper, admiring the elegant image of a mulberry tree above the details of each course.
“Nothing but the best for our guests,” said Khoi. “Now, how about you return to the living room before people think we’ve abandoned them?”
“They’d be thrilled if we did,” I murmured. “Those who’ve never been to your house are itching to go upstairs. They all want to see how the Nguyens really live.”
“Never,” he said, bringing his lips to my neck. “I have to keep some secrets.”
“I hope you at least locked up that photograph. If Victor wandered up to your room for some reason.”
“I did,” he said, kissing me quickly. “And you’re still sure about the rest?”
“I’m still sure,” I confirmed.
After I’d talked to Red, I’d run out of the car and spoken to Paul Adrien again. I’d asked him if he knew what Red was referring to. Who were the dead communists on the Michelin plantation?
He’d told me about a list he’d given to Jessie in Haiphong, which in turn had been given to him by the chief Michelin recruiter in Tonkin at the request of Victor Lesage. It was a list of ten names. Men who were suspected of trying to incite a communist uprising.
“Did you tell her what to do with the names?” I’d asked Paul in a panic. “Did you suggest they kill them all?”
“No. No!” he’d replied. “I was told to give them to her and that she would deliver them safely to Victor. I didn’t even know she was his wife when we met.”
“It sounds like Victor Lesage then delivered those men a death sentence.”
Paul had looked away from me and I’d felt very sorry for him in that moment, something I thought I would never be able to feel for Sinh’s killer. This time it was he, not Victor, who had started the death march.
“I can find out more,” he’d said. “I need to.”
This morning it was Paul who contacted me.
“Ten known communists died. All from complications with malaria, Michelin is saying.”
When I relayed what Paul had found out to Khoi, he’d slammed the window that he was closing in the living room so hard that he shattered the pane.
“Marcelle,” he’d said, shaking the glass off his fingers. “I know you’ve been acting without me. Seeking your revenge in ways I would never agree to.”
“Perhaps,” I said cautiously, thinking of what I knew about Jessie that Khoi didn’t.
“You’ll get no more fights from me,” he said, brushing the glass from the windowsill with his sleeve. “Do whatever you see fit. Push them both off a cliff at this point for all I care.”
“Happily,” I’d responded.
Khoi headed to the kitchen for the bird’s nest soup, to taste the prized delicacy before it was served, and I walked to the living room door. I opened it and paused, breathing in the aroma of women’s perfumes. I wanted to take a moment to watch the guests before toppling back into the evening.
On such occasions, the house seemed even more awe-inspiring than the everyday version I had come to know, because it was filled not just with life but also with palpable envy. How, all the French wondered—some of them audibly—could a mite have so much more than they did? Then, after consuming glass after glass of the mite’s expensive champagne, they would have a change of heart and decide that instead of envying him, they should be applauding themselves, because obviously it was they, the French saviors, who had made this simple native man’s success possible. I had heard this particular mental progression from many of Khoi’s guests over the years. But they were wrong. It was despite the French that the Nguyens had succeeded. Everything they had was despite us.
I looked past the other guests in their colorful finery to where Jessie and Victor were seated on a deco couch recently shipped in from Paris. The upholstery was a deep blue cotton velvet, the cushions resting on glossy Macassar ebony wood. They had sunk comfortably into its depths and were busy sipping Veuve Clicquot and nibbling on the foie gras being passed to them every few minutes by Khoi’s pretty female servants. This evening, each servant wore an ao of buttle green, the signature color of Lua Nguyen Thanh.
Khoi had once told me that the secret to the color was that everyone thought it was emerald green, but it was actually bottle green. “As in, the exact color of a bottle of rice wine,” he’d said. “It’s just on silk, so it looks a little darker, giving it the richness of emerald with the hint of something familiar. It’s a secret mix of the elegant and the everyday.” The result was the best color green ever produced.
With their hair uniformly cut in a bunt, chin-length bob, set off by a single waved lock, the servants looked nearly identical. The silk-factory dolls, Khoi had once called them. “It’s ridiculous,” he’d said the first time I attended one of his parties. “But my father likes them to be half servants, half models for Nguyen silk. And it works. Every female guest commissions something before she leaves. Even the French ones.”
Khoi joined me a few minutes later, surprised to see me still by the door. I glanced at him but looked quickly back to the Lesages, sensing Victor’s eyes on us. I hadn’t seen him since the night we’d met in September, and in only two and a half months he seemed changed. His face still wore that imperious look, but also a shadow of fatigue. He looked older, not as fresh as he had that evening at the club. Perhaps ordering men’s deaths was taking its toll.
Jessie was not seated near me for the meal, but after we’d finished and everyone was adjourning to the sitting rooms or the outdoor terrace, she rushed up to me and took my arm. I could tell she was drunk.
I lit myself a cigarette and handed her one, too. She hesitated a moment and then began to smoke.
“Marcelle,” she cooed as we strolled outside. “This place. I assumed Khoi was well-off after seeing his boat, but this is something else altogether. It must be three times the size of our house.”
“Oh, no,” I said, inhaling deeply. “It can’t be more than double the size.” I looked at her, barely able to get the cigarette to her mouth. “I’m sorry I haven’t seen you since that boat trip. I hope all the nonsense that went on that night didn’t leave you disgusted with us.” We sat in planter’s chairs, and I inched mine closer to her, draping my arm behind her.
“Of course not,” she said breezily. “I suppose that’s just how things are here. In the Orient.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” I said.
“Red didn’t come tonight,” she said loudly, her words slurred.
“Red?” I replied, suppressing a grin. “Of course not. I thought it would be impertinent to invite him. What with your husband here and all. Would you like me to telephone him now? Shall I invite him to join us?”
“No, please don’t,” she said quickly. “I was just expecting him. You seem to always be with him.”
“I’m seldom with him,” I countered. “Where I always am is here.”
“That’s bold of you,” she said, looking around at the mixed group. “To host a party with your lover.” She rubbed her eyes, as if she couldn’t quite believe what was in front of her.
“Is it?” I said, noting the mascara that she’d smudged. “I suppose. But life must be lived boldly in the colony if one is to survive. If I were to sit at home, lamenting Arnaud while he jumped in and out of other women’s beds, I wouldn’t make it here. Khoi is my life vest.”
“And one with a palace,” said Jessie. “That’s convenient.”
I looked back at the house. Every light was on, and against the night sky, it was at its most transfixing.
“I like it best like this,” I said, admiring it for the thousandth time.
“So do I,” she replied, “and I’ve only seen it this once.”
I looked at her, her body sprawled awkwardly, her dress moving up her thighs. I had never seen her so intoxicated. “And I liked that bird-spit soup more than I thought I would,” she added.
“Bird’s nest,” I said, unable to suppress a laugh. “But bird’s spit is actually more accurate, since it’s made from the saliva of swiftlets. Very good for your health.”
She nodded, tried to sit up straighter, but fell off the end of the chair.
“Too much champagne,” she said, closing her eyes as she lay where she’d fallen.
I stood and helped her up, leaning her back again.
“It’s no wonder I don’t see you at the club so much anymore,” she said.
“I have been here quite a bit,” I admitted.
“The Officers’ Club,” she said, slurring her words. “We women all go there on our first night in Indochine.”
“Yes, we do,” I said. I should have had a servant fetch her some water, but I was enjoying observing her loss of control too much.
“I’d like to spend time with you there again,” she said. She opened her eyes and looked at me, her expression suddenly thoughtful. “You know what I’ve been thinking about? The day I met you. How we were scampering around behind the walls together at the club. To be honest, that was the most fun I’ve had in Hanoi.”
I stared at her, her beautiful face tilted back at an unnatural angle. I thought of what I knew about her childhood. Of her parents, and how hard she’d had to work to rid herself of them. I hadn’t grown up with much more than she had, but I’d had good, loving parents who were determined to give me a better life.
Perhaps I could say one truthful thing to her on a night that was devoted to secrets.
“It was fun, wasn’t it?” I said. I reached out and touched her hand. “It’s amazing we kept quiet after seeing that minister,” I said, smiling at the memory.
“He was so fat,” said Jessie. “And so naked.”
We dissolved into laughter, and I poured us two more glasses of champagne.
“There’s really a lot to amuse us spoiled French women in Indochine,” I said. She was practically swaying when I handed her the glass. She certainly wouldn’t remember this conversation the next day. “It’s just that sometimes life gets in the way here.” I watched her as I said it.
“Is that what you call it?” she said, her eyes trying to focus on my face in the dim lantern light.
“Yes. Life. Real life. Because even though Indochine can feel like one long vacation, it’s not, is it? What happens here is just as important as what goes on in France or America.”
“I think so, too,” she said, closing her eyes. “But I like it here much more than in America.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said, exhaling my cigarette smoke into the black sky.